What $15 a day actually buys you on Google in Brisbane

1. Why $15

It's roughly the floor at which Google Search ads for a local service produce enough clicks per week to learn anything. Below it, you're guessing. Above about $40 a day, most single-location businesses hit the ceiling of people actually searching in their area.

All three businesses below started at $15 a day, or $450 a month, on top of their Curlew plan.

2. The plumber, Moorooka

Emergency and general plumbing, one van, radius of about 12km. Search terms were narrow: "plumber near me", "blocked drain", "hot water system" plus suburb names.

Nineteen calls at $24 each. About a third turned into jobs. The agent paused two suburbs in week three that were producing clicks but no calls, which is the kind of adjustment that would sit for months in a typical agency account.

3. The physio, Paddington

Higher competition and higher click prices, but a much higher value per new patient. Terms were condition-led: "physio for back pain", "sports physio Paddington".

Fewer enquiries than the plumber, but each new patient is worth several visits. The maths still works.

4. The cleaner, Chermside

Bond cleans and regular domestic cleaning across the northside. The interesting result here was that Meta outperformed Google in month two once the agent had a set of before-and-after photos to work with.

5. What we'd do differently

Start the physio on Google only and add Meta later; the first month's Meta spend was mostly learning. Ask the cleaner for photos in week one, not week three. And for all three, set up call tracking before the first dollar is spent, because the first fortnight of data is otherwise a guess.

If you want to know what $15 a day would do for your business, ask. We'll tell you honestly, including if the answer is "not much yet".